AUTHOR: F. NduwimanaDATE: 2004PUBLISHER: International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development

This report focuses on the plight of the women in Rwanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo who have contracted HIV/AIDS as a result of rape during conflict in those countries. It argues that under international human rights and humanitarian law, these women have the right to reparations for their suffering, including guaranteed access to antiretroviral drugs to fight HIV / AIDS. The first part of the report provides data, interviews, and accounts gathered in Rwanda with survivor women's associations, and recounts the sexual violence and the high level of HIV/AIDS among these surviving women and its relationship to the genocide, the hate propaganda and the underlying ethnic violence. The second part of the report is based on interviews and data gathered in DRC and Burundi. The historical poverty of Africa, the persistence of armed conflict, the transregional mobility of many armed groups, the non-compliance of peace-keeping forces with the code of conduct, their inability to protect the civilian population, and gender-based inequalities are all elements taken into account to explain the situation of women grappling with political violence and HIV/AIDS.

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